


Niche Construction

by Guede



Series: Sustainable Management [17]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Angst and Humor, Bondage, Chris Feels, F/M, Human Alpha Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Polyamory, Pseudo-History, Sex Toys, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:06:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9494831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Chris revisits family history, helps out Stiles with the Nemeton, and ends up career-counseling himself.





	

When the alarm goes off, Chris starts up and throws out his arm, only to realize he’s on the wrong side of the bed. He goes still, holding his breath, squinting and willing his vision to clear up faster, and then there’s a groan and a movement behind him.

“Oh, God,” Melissa mutters. “It can’t be that early.”

She twists around and her hip bumps into his back, catching him just as he starts again, and for a second Chris’ body seizes up with conflicting reflexes. It’s…kind of painful, to be honest, cramping up straight out of sleep, and he ends up having to force himself to breathe his way out of it.

By the time he does, and has gotten himself turned around, Melissa has already turned off the alarm. For a moment she slumps over the end-table on that side, her mass of hair hanging down over the arm she’s got braced on the table. Then, groaning, she shoves herself backwards and flops down. Her arm goes over her head and into the pillow, and then shifts down as she rubs at her face.

“It’s not really this early, is it?” she mumbles through her fingers.

Chris sits up and glances across her at the clock. He can read it just fine, but something just keeps him…he runs his hand back over the top of his head, then gives himself a light tap on the cheek, trying to wake up already. That weird alienness, where everything you know you should know just doesn’t look like it should, that feeling right after you wake up. It’s sticking to him and it shouldn’t.

“Yeah,” he finally says. 

When he looks down, Melissa parts her fingers just enough to peer through them at him. She pulls an unhappy mouth, slightly exaggerated, and then snorts and smiles and takes her hand off her face to reach out to him. “Oh, come on,” she says. Her fingertips graze his arm and then she rolls over further so she can grab his shoulder. “You don’t have to get up, much less have two new residents to bed in today.”

“Well, I was going to cook you—” Chris starts, but as he turns, she pulls at him. 

He stops and looks back at her and she tugs again, so he goes down onto one arm next to her. Melissa’s smile gets a little smaller, a little less showy—but it’s more intimate that way, the warmth concentrated, and he shivers almost before her fingers stray up towards his neck.

“You’ve cooked me breakfast from scratch every day of this week,” she says. She moves her head across the pillow and closer to him, while her knee pulls up to nudge at his thigh. “You’re going to get me used to that.”

“Any reason why I shouldn’t?” Chris says. He can’t help smiling himself as she laughs, showing little white teeth, her lashes going down over her eyes. “It’s not like I’m busy, anyway.”

“You could go back to sleep,” Melissa says, while working her fingers up to curl about Chris’ nape. She teases at the little hairs there, running her nails gently across them.

Chris’ head is already going down so he shrugs, and then lets that push him onto both elbows. His one arm is already running up against her and he moves it down, following the warmth coming through the sheet till he has her breast rounded in his palm. He checks her face and she’s still smiling at him. “I can just do that after I make breakfast, too.”

She laughs and pulls him down, kissing his nose before she kisses his mouth. “Oh, you are making it so _hard_ to get up—”

Chris works to swing his elbows out of the way, not wanting them to dig at her as he slides down over her body, and ends up getting his lip caught between her teeth. He can feel the vibrations of her chuckle through them, just before she lets him go, her hands moving to round over the tops of his shoulders. He stifles a groan, feeling his half-hearted morning wood quickly come to full attention—stifles the urge to tell her how hard she makes it to believe he’s really there, living in her house.

“I need to get up,” Melissa’s saying, even as she presses herself up, her vee of hair tickling at his belly. His thumb brushes across her nipple and she squirms as that hardens, squirms and sighs and then rubs her thumbs into the hollows of his throat. “Ugh, God, I need to…I should…oh, hell with it, I need to shower anyway.”

“Could drive you too, so you don’t have to find parking. Get a couple more minutes that way,” Chris says. He ducks down and kisses her on the underside of the jaw, soft, angling his head so that his stubble doesn’t rasp her. Should’ve shaved last night, need to remember to do that afterwards.

Melissa says something to him, half-reproachful, half-amused. Probably that he needs to stop all that thinking, too, but he’s got both her breasts plumped in his hands and has just gotten his knee down between her legs, and she’s starting to breathe faster. Heat’s flushing up from her chest—he can feel it, kissing his way down her neck and then laying his tongue in the dip between the two halves of her collarbones. Her hands on his shoulders are starting to knead.

He puts his head down on her breastbone, and she strokes her hand over his shoulder and down onto his back. Her fingertips run along his spine and when they come up, she curls the nails down for a light scratch that brings him back up again, groaning—his cock brushes up against the inside of her thigh and he’s been hard for long enough that it’s getting uncomfortable. He hisses and she moves under him, lazy like she keeps saying she doesn’t have time to be, and she catches his eye and the upcurve of her mouth is like a light in the window on a dark, rainy night.

“Down,” she says. She’s got a hint of laughter in her voice, but it’s an order.

Chris’ chin tips up towards her, just enough for her to notice, and then he pushes down past her belly, spreading away the sheets with his hands. She shivers as he palms up her thighs, and then lets out a little, caught-in-the-teeth groan as he rubs his thumbs in circles along her hips, in a long arc just under her bellybutton. Her hands go back to his shoulders, gripping hard as he presses his mouth down over her groin.

He goes slow. Starts up at the hairline, huffing a little in between kisses so his breath will sluice down between her legs, get things warmed up. He has to pull up once, when she hikes her knees and nearly hits him in the chin; she rubs an apology into the back of his neck before getting a couple fingers of his hair and then pulling impatiently at them. Chris makes a low, placating noise and Melissa moans, her head going back against the pillow.

She pushes him then. His mouth comes down right above her clit, on the little hood of flesh that shelters it, and Melissa lets out a long, shaky ‘hah’ of a breath, her feet moving in short, irregular hitches to either side of Chris’ head. They rumple up the sheets as he laps his way along the hood’s edge, sometimes teasing it between his tongue and lip, and then one kicks clumsily out as he finally zeroes in on the clit itself.

Melissa’s still aware enough to push the heel of her hand into Chris, warning him, and he swings away and her foot pushes right past him. Still, he tucks his arms in under him—uses his hands to push up her hips, cradling her ass as she starts trying to hitch down into his mouth, gasping and moaning. Her other leg bumps his shoulder, and she swears, slurring a little, before letting go of him to grab it and hold it out of the way. He presses down harder with his tongue on her clit, riding out the spasms that are starting to run up and down her, and then, just as she takes a deep, harsh breath, he carefully slips a finger into her and curls it up till she cries out.

Chris eases off on the pressure once she seems to be coming down, but he keeps his mouth on her till she bats at his shoulder. Then he pulls back his head and levers himself up; she’s still breathless, but she’s already pulling at his nape, urging him to get up next to her.

His cock’s heavy between his legs, and gets bumped between them and he can’t help groaning. She snickers at him, then rolls them over so she’s on top of him and puts her hand down and God, when she had the time to get the lube out—he doesn’t know, he doesn’t, and all he can do, honestly, is stare up at her.

“I wish I could wake up like that all the time,” Melissa says. She pumps his cock once, working its whole length, and then suddenly lets go as he gasps. Then she wraps her fingers around him again, lying down on Chris so as she works his cock, the head of it brushes up against the still-damp tops of her thighs. “Oh, no, Chris, you can’t—listen, I love it, love how you try, but you can’t just—you can’t just _do everything_ for me—”

Chris has to put off his reply because he’s busy coming, and she’s doing that thing—she inches her thumb gently but firmly across the head of his cock as he does and it’s so good he’s afraid he’s tearing up chunks of the bed, he’s gripping it that hard.

But once he’s done, and they’re just lying there together, Melissa idly tracing her fingertips along the side of his neck, he looks up at her. “Why not?” he says. “No—look, I’m not…not asking because I just—because I’m trying to make you happy. I know—we both know life gets in the way. But when I can, and since I want to…why not? It’s not as if I’ve got anything else on my plate.”

Melissa starts to answer him and then she stops. The space between her brows creases up and for a moment he thinks she’s going to frown at him. Turns out she doesn’t—she’s not mad or annoyed, thankfully, but she’s…thinking about it pretty hard.

“Well, look, if you think so. I mean, God knows I’m not a saint, and I just try to do the right thing as much as I can,” she finally says. She’s measuring out the words, and at one point her eyes briefly wander from him like she’s talking to herself. “But Chris, I just…I really want to be sure you think so.”

He stares at her. “You don’t think I want this? You—”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean that,” Melissa says hastily. Her eyes widen and Chris puts up his hand to her cheek, and they’re both quiet, catching their breath over their relief. Then she takes a deep breath. Smiles at him, and puts her hand over his on her cheek. “No, it’s just I know you took a step back to think things over, but…you really should think it over, Chris. It’s one thing to take a break, but I just don’t want you closing any doors.”

She holds his hand to her for a few more seconds, then leans over and presses her lips to his brow. Then she pushes herself off of him, holding her hair out of her face with the crook of her wrist since her fingers are still dirty.

“But I will take you up on dropping me off,” she says, sighing. A joint pops as she gets off the bed and she grabs at her back, then looks embarrassed as she heads off towards the shower. “God. Too early, I swear…”

Chris sits up and swings his legs off the bed, and looks after her. He should get in the shower with her—not to slow her down any more, even if the thought selfishly crosses his mind, watching her curves sway—but so he can clean off and then get downstairs and make breakfast. But instead he stays there for a few minutes, stays and keeps watching.

* * *

After Chris drops Melissa off at the hospital, he goes back to her house, but not to go back to sleep. He’d kind of lied to her: once he’s out of bed, he’s generally up for the day. Unless he’s very tired or very hurt, he’s never been one for naps.

At this point he’s just about fully moved into Melissa’s house; Allison won’t move into her dorm for a few more weeks and whenever she’s home he stays at their house, but with all her and Scott’s last-minute summer get-togethers with their friends, that’s not too often. Once she’s gone, he’s aiming to spend one night a week at his house, but mentally he’s shifted to thinking of Melissa’s place as home base. So he’s started taking over some of Scott’s chores. There’s no mortgage to help out with—Chris kind of suspects Melissa wouldn’t take his help there even if there was—so it’s the least he can do.

And he’ll admit doing that helps _him_ not feel so much as if he’s a guest. Combination of inherited instincts from those distant packborn ancestors and his hunter training, unless it’s a place he’s worked on himself, he never quite feels as if he can let down his guard. Scott hadn’t wanted to “make” Chris do anything—how an alpha werewolf, even raised by Melissa, can look at it like that is beyond Chris, but that’s Scott for you—but once Chris had managed to explain it in those terms, he’d gotten it.

So Chris checks whether he needs to change the sheets on the bed. Luckily, he doesn’t, but the laundry hamper’s full so he starts a load in the washer. He already cleaned up after breakfast and the kids won’t be in for dinner, though John will be, so he surveys the pantry and fridge and then gets some chicken marinating. After that, he polishes up a few frayed wards and does some dusting when he notices a couple fuzzy clumps in one corner of the living room.

It all takes him maybe an hour, and then he doesn’t have anything to do.

Well, he could study up for the next licensing exam. He thinks about it, and then sits down on the couch instead of getting his notes. It’s not just laziness—he does at least an hour every day except for class days and anyway, they’re currently in part of the licensing course that hasn’t changed since the last time he’d renewed his license. He just doesn’t want to do it.

Chris could go out to the preserve, or go around town. It’s not his turn to patrol—which is unofficial anyway, no matter what strings John is pulling at the Service to cover that up—but he could. He could also stop in at the Service office; even if John is too busy to see him, there are the other rangers and they usually have some kind of problem they wouldn’t mind a second opinion on. And if it turns out they don’t, Chris always has a few things to do for his business.

He probably should work on that. He’s got a decent income at the moment, but with Allison nearly off to college, he should be hustling so they have more of a financial buffer. Even with her archery scholarship and financial aid, it’s going to be tight, and he doesn’t want her to have to miss out on a class or an internship because they fall behind on tuition. But—well, he does that every day, too.

Small business owners being able to take vacations whenever they want is one of the biggest myths Chris has ever heard, he thinks as he flops his head onto the back of the couch. That said, taking off half a day, or even a full day probably won’t kill his, and…he just wishes he knew why he’s in such a stupid, petty, childish mood today.

When his phone rings, Chris makes an embarrassingly relieved noise. He shakes himself and presses his hand over his mouth, then takes a deep breath and answers the call. “Allison?”

 _“Hey, Dad,”_ his daughter says. _“You’re not busy, are you? If you are, it’s not an emergency.”_

“No, I’m not. What happened?” Chris asks, sitting up.

 _“Nothing bad, Dad. Scott and I were just going through the north end of the preserve and there was this fox at the side of the road and it was ripped up pretty bad, so we’re taking it to the clinic,”_ Allison says. In the background, now that Chris is listening for it, he can hear Scott talking softly to the fox, telling it he’s sorry about the bumpy road but they’re almost there. Allison sounds calm enough; she is a little stilted at the beginning, but that goes away when Chris lets out his breath. _“We’re both okay, it’s just the fox.”_

Chris does get up from the couch, but he isn’t running for his gun, or for another phone to call for back-up. “What’s the matter with it? Not rabies, because that’d be an emergency—”

 _“Yeah, I know, Dad,”_ Allison says with just a touch of exasperation. Lately she’s been getting…not annoyed, but restive. She still goes through all of the little signs and rituals they have to check in with each other, and while she’s not grudging about it, she’s a little distant. He thinks she’s got her mind on college where she won’t have to keep doing that with him. _“No, no rabies or distemper symptoms. Scott says it doesn’t have the smell either, but we both used gloves and disinfectant—not that it’s really strong enough to do anything. It is torn up a lot.”_

“Got in a fight or something?” Chris says, looking around for his car keys. He’d thought he’d put them by the…but that hook’s in his house, and here Melissa has a candy dish in the hall. Shaking his head at himself, he picks up the keys and then opens the closet to grab his coat. “Can’t be with an omega, everybody’s alarms would be going off.”

Allison pauses to have a half-muffled conversation with Scott—they sound like they’re on a gravel road. _“Nope, not that either. Scott texted Stiles just to make sure, and Stiles says the tree says it’s been totally clear. But Stiles says that also just rules out omegas, not other wild animals, and the wounds look kind of funny to me, and anyway, I was calling because I think there’s this sketch in Dangereuse Argent’s notebooks and do we have those at home or did we put them away?”_

“Oh.” Chris stops where he is, one hand on the open closet door. He stares at the coats for a few seconds, then turns around. Then he turns back, rolling his eyes at himself. “I can’t remember off the top of my head, but I can drive over and check…I think we might have put those in storage. Dangereuse the Second, you mean?”

 _“The one who set up the Quebec outpost?”_ Allison says a little uncertainly. _“I was wondering if they were too old, okay…well, I can just go over to the storage place later. Scott says they’ll probably have to work on the fox all afternoon.”_

“No, if you think there’s something, I’m not doing anything and now you’ve got me curious,” Chris says, putting on his coat. “Anyway, I’m not sure they _aren’t_ at the house, so I’ll check that, and since I’m driving out I can go get them from storage if that’s where they are. You want to send me a pic of the fox?”

 _“Just texted you,”_ Allison says, right as Chris’ phone vibrates. _“I really don’t want to make this a big deal, I’m not even sure…it’s just how the edges look all dry, like jerky. It’s weird, isn’t it?”_

 _“Stiles says he and Derek are at the tree, talking to it about it,”_ Scott breaks in. _“He says nothing so far, but he’ll keep us updated.”_

Chris takes his phone down to look at the photo Allison sent him. It’s a close-up through the bars of a holding cage, and it’s a little blurry because the car was moving, but he can make out the fox’s haunch. The fur is heavily matted with blood and dirt, so the fox probably has been carrying the wounds for a day or more. When he zooms in, he can see three slashes running back towards the tail, looking like something had tried to grab the fox from behind and drag it down. From the size and the shape, they’re not out of line for something like a bobcat or maybe a juvenile cougar, but like Allison says, the edges of the wounds are off, and especially since there’s enough fresh blood smeared around to show gangrene hasn’t set in yet.

“Well, I’ll go find those diaries,” Chris finally says, putting his phone back up to his mouth. “I’ll meet you at the clinic, all right?”

 _“Sure. Thanks, Dad!”_ Allison says.

They both hang up and then Chris heads out to his car. He sends Melissa a couple texts to let her know he’ll be out, just in case she needs something from the house and thinks he can get it for her; he figures Scott will have texted her about the fox, so he just mentions that he’s running an errand for Scott and Allison and will text again if he’s not back in time to start dinner. Melissa texts him back right as he’s about to turn on his car, just saying all right, remember they can always grab take-out instead.

Then John texts right after that, asking whether he’s getting dragged into this fox mystery. Chris starts to text back, and then he sits and thinks it over. Then he deletes that text and writes a new one, inviting John to come help him look through the storage container.

* * *

Since both Chris and Allison won’t be spending too much time there, Chris has been cutting down the amount of stuff in his house, especially anything related to hunting. Sure, he’s got good strong security and the crime rate in Beacon Hills is very low, but some of those things could be so dangerous in the wrong hands that if he’s not there every night, he doesn’t want to risk a burglary. If there isn’t room for it at Melissa’s house—she’s cleared out a generous portion of her basement—he puts it in storage.

He still checks the house for the diaries, but the place is so stripped down that that just takes a couple glances around, and then he’s onto the storage center.

“Hey,” John says, meeting Chris in the parking lot. He glances around the place, then stops and squints at the spellwork tucked under the eaves running right over Chris’ unit. Then grins. “Well, I was wondering how you would’ve brought this place up to code. Not that they’re a bad choice—I checked out the website, nice of them to put the remote-controlled webcams as an add-on instead of making you buy the whole premium tier to…what?”

“You’re wearing your uniform,” Chris says, still staring. “I didn’t think there was a conference on today.”

John twitches and one of his hands goes down to the tan trousers, and from the way his fingers are pinched up together, it’s not to smooth out any wrinkles. Then he stops himself and sighs, his shoulders rolling uncomfortably under his shirt. “No, there aren’t, but I have one of the candidates in for a walk-round interview—Parrish—and I figured I should probably dress like a guy he’d report to, if we end up picking him.”

Chris presses his lips together. From the way John narrows his eyes at him, that’s not enough to keep the amusement off his face, but honestly, he doesn’t see what John has against the Service uniform. It might be too plain to ever make it into James Bond’s closet, but it’s not like it makes the man look _bad_.

Actually, Chris can’t help thinking as John stalks by him, it does at least a few things for John. The trousers aren’t worn out of shape like most of the man’s jeans, so they hang up high where the belt is supposed to keep them.

“Are you seriously checking out my ass, Argent?” John says, stopping at the unit door. He’s still got his back to Chris.

“Well, you seem to like the rear view so much, figured I’d see what all the fuss is about.” Chris glances over his shoulder, checking that they’re alone in the lot, and then steps up by John and takes out his keys. He sticks the door key inside and then puts the palm of his free hand up flat against the door, right in the middle of all the glowing wards that have suddenly appeared. His fingers tingle and the lines disappear, and then he turns the key. “Gonna have to take a picture, Melissa’s never going to believe me otherwise.”

He starts to push in the door, but just then a lick of breath goes across the back of his neck. Chris sucks air through his teeth and John steps up behind him, one hand going into his jeans pocket where his phone is, and just like that heat streaks down from his nape and up from his hip and meets in a shivering knot in his belly.

“Yeah, well, maybe I should just confiscate this, then,” John mutters, nudging at the phone with his fingertips. The heel of his hand digs back to rub into the side of Chris’ buttock, and when Chris shivers, John brings up his other hand and slides it under Chris’ coat, rubbing it up and down Chris’ back. The way the touch sparks through Chris’ shirt, he almost thinks the rumpling’s pulling up static electricity. “That wasn’t a threat, was it?”

“That—that—” Chris bites down on his lip as John blows across his nape again “—damn it, Stilinski, these are family heirlooms.”

John laughs at him, being an asshole, as usual. He mouths at Chris’ neck just as Chris gropes for the light switch, which means that Chris misses that and they shuffle into the unit in the dark. There’s some light coming in from outside, but it doesn’t go far enough in to show Chris the box that bites into his shin. He stumbles, cursing—John’s hissing too, having run into another box. Then he turns around and slaps his hand on the wall for a guide, only to have the other man crowd him backwards, mouth coming down hot and hard on Chris’ own.

Chris’ damn knees are already going soft. His elbow bangs into a stack of boxes and he jerks his arm in, then manages to catch John’s sleeve with his fingertips. Hangs onto that, twisting his hand in the cloth, feeling it get damp from his sweat as John reduces him to a trembling, moaning mess. The pain in his shin fades against the barely-stinging nip John gives his lower lip that goes all the way down into the tightening front of his jeans—and then something clicks behind him and the light goes on overhead.

“Shit,” John says, ducking his head back. He takes one hand off Chris and rubs at his eyes, then keeps blinking hard as he looks around. He’s got kind of a furtive look on his face that disappears once he realizes they’re still alone. “Huh. Probably should close the door.”

“Should stop trying to screw me where one of us is gonna wreck their back,” Chris mutters, though he’s still palming at John’s sleeve. When the other man glances back at him, miffed with a side of amused, Chris drops his eyes and starts fingering the top of John’s shirt pocket. “You’re just lucky this isn’t the unit where I keep the powered relics.”

“Well, you started it, looking at my ass.” John stays off Chris, but shifts his hands to Chris’ hips, maddeningly light as they drift along the seams. “I don’t like this uniform. I think it makes me look like an oversized piece of cardboard. And you have to look like that and make me think like maybe I misjudged it.”

Chris rolls his eyes and…keeps playing with that pocket, like it’s much of an alibi for grazing his fingers across John’s chest every time the man takes a breath. He keeps telling himself that they’re standing in the accumulated resources of his family, and just by sheer weight of the decades, those have earned some respect, and then he doesn’t do anything. “John, your own _son_ has to text you to stop staring at my rear end when we’re in public.”

“Yeah, so, stop wearing jeans this tight,” John says, and as he does, his hands go back and cup Chris’ buttocks. They dig in with the fingertips, catching enough of the denim to drag it taut as Chris inhales sharply. “Man with a grown daughter, honestly.”

Allison. Right. That’s why Chris is even out here. “We—really shouldn’t.”

John eyes him a little. Just enough that Chris bites his lip and thinks if John’s going to, he can’t, won’t argue. And then…John sighs and drops his hands from Chris. “Yeah. True. I need to be back to grab Parrish anyway, that’s not enough time for me to run you home and get back to the office.”

For a second Chris leans against the wall, feeling the cool air settle disappointingly across him, pretending like he’s happy his knees are firming back up. Then he shakes his head, pushes off the wall. Reaches out and slaps John lightly on the arm. “You know, I drove myself and two unconscious guys thirty miles in an ATV with three broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder once.”

John makes room for Chris in the narrow aisles between the stacks. “I know—well, I didn’t know that, exactly, but I know you’re that kind,” he says. He’s a little watchful, for all that he’s keeping his tone light. “But if you don’t have to, would you want to put yourself through that?”

Not a great joke, he’s saying. Politely, but he’s right and Chris winces. Sometimes Chris thinks he’s never really going to be much good at regular society again—if he ever was. He might be able to pass for things like doing the grocery-shopping, but anything more complicated than that and those bits of—of hunter things, of family things, Argent things. They slip out, and even people like John think he’s a little off. 

“So these are diaries? Books?” John asks, when Chris has let the silence drag a bit too long. Speaking of.

“Yeah. Yeah, they’d be about this big,” Chris says. He rolls his shoulders to cover up his start and then holds out his hands to show John. “Leatherbound, still some fur on the hide, dark brown. They belonged to Dangereuse Argent. She lived in Quebec back in the late 1600s. Married a beaver trader and traveled a lot with him.”

John steps back and shuts the door, and then follows Chris towards the far side of the room. He waits till Chris points out which boxes to look in—bottom of the stack, of course—and then helps Chris shift the other boxes out of the way so they can get into them. “There was a Nemeton up near Quebec City,” he says thoughtfully, looking not at Chris but at the box he’s hefting out of the way. “One of the first North American ones recorded by the Europeans.”

“Yeah. Dangereuse lived near Montreal, but she saw the Nemeton in Quebec City once, and if I remember correctly, she wrote that you could see the effects of it as far down as Montreal sometimes,” Chris grunts. He swings off the last box, then gets down on one knee, his hand to his twinging back. They’re raising up a bunch of dust and it makes him cough and he raises his arm so he can do that into the crook of his elbow. “Those documents I gave you way back—”

“When we were courting? Kind of?” When Chris looks up, John holds out a bandanna. Grinning a little sheepishly at his so-called joke, though above that his eyes are still watching Chris carefully.

Chris takes the bandanna and ties it over his nose and mouth, but not without a swipe at John’s hand. The man gets in his skin—in his skin and his head and his heart, and God, but he’s long since stopped fighting and admitted he wants it more than anything. But he’s getting better at dealing with John’s sense of humor, he thinks.

“Now that I know you two better, I maybe should’ve given all the presents to Melissa,” Chris says. And smiles behind the bandanna as John makes an offended noise and gives him a short but tight grip on the shoulder. “Yeah, those. I put some copies of Dangereuse’s diaries in there, but just the…the stuff I was sure was actually about the Nemeton. She wrote about a lot more, but with what we know now some of it’s dead wrong, and anyway, she was considered kind of an eccentric by the rest of the family. Had some weird theories. I didn’t want to give you something unreliable.”

“Well, that would be old enough that they were still working out how to integrate the supernatural communities. And back then it’s not like we had firsthand European accounts, Nemeton would’ve been run by the…the, ah, the First Nations, one of them.” John makes a frustrated noise. He sounds odd, but that turns out to just be the bandanna he’s wrapped around his own nose and mouth. “Hell. Why can’t I remember the tribe now…getting old.”

“Think it’d be either Algonquin or Iroquois, I’d have to look up the history again because I can’t remember either,” Chris says. He flips up the box lid and the dust is so thick he has to shuffle back and sneeze a few times to clear out his nose. “Anyway, Dangereuse’s story was she was a younger daughter, youngest of five. She was never likely to ever lead the family, so she went over to America, apparently to try and start an outpost in Quebec. It’s hard to tell from here, but she might’ve just gone first and gotten the family to forgive her later, instead of asking permission like you were supposed to.”

John hands Chris a packet of tissues and then walks off a few yards. When he comes back, he’s got the tube of cleaning wipes Chris keeps in the unit, and he kneels down and starts trying to clean away all the dust. “So was she really eccentric, or did the family history, er, color it?”

He’s asking as nicely as he can, with a couple sidelong looks at Chris, and Chris almost wants to tell John he doesn’t have to be so diplomatic. It’s a rare Old World family who doesn’t have some kind of internal split in its history, and for all their damned insistence on tradition, the Argents have been a lot less worried about hiding their family quarrels than some of the other lines. When Chris got old enough to realize how hypocritical that was, that was when he first started wondering whether he even wanted his children to be raised like he was.

But that’s the past, and John’s asking him now. “No, she was pretty out there, if you read through all the diaries,” Chris says. He coughs into the bandanna a last time, then levers himself forward and gets into the box. 

The covers on the diaries are still surprisingly supple, even with how old the leather is, but the paper inside is delicate as a snowflake. By all rights the books should be in some kind of temperature-controlled, filtered-atmosphere vault, but Chris can’t afford that and just has to do the best he can with stasis runes. The magic makes his hands go slightly numb as he holds them in the box, and he does his best to work quickly and scan the spines so he can find the right volumes.

“I don’t mean out there like she was ahead of her time, and doing things like listening to the local natives either,” Chris goes on. “She was a damn strict Catholic, and I’ll warn you now that that screws around a lot with her observations because—shit, I forgot to get the carrying case.”

“I’ll get it,” John says. “Out in your car?”

“No, there should be—I keep a spare over there, the blue one,” Chris says, nodding at it. “Anyway, her being Catholic, she was strict but she had this…very specific idea of what Catholicism was supposed to be, and refused to follow a lot of the new edicts during the…what was it called, the Counter-Reformation…”

“Okay, I think I got it.” But John sounds doubtful, so Chris looks up. The man has the right case, so Chris is confused and John sees that and looks embarrassed. “The case, yeah. All this history, not so much. I’ve kind of got an idea what you’re talking about, but I’m gonna admit, I’m mostly picturing _Last of the Mohicans_ right now.”

Chris snorts at him. “That isn’t even about the right side, let alone the time period. That’s about the English. You know that, right?”

“You know you sound like my kid, right?” John says, but he’s mostly self-deprecating about it. He hikes over a box with the case, and then squeezes past Chris to get the cleaning wipes again. “Anyway, I think I get the point that your ancestor Dangereuse wasn’t too objective. Wrote down everything from her point of view and pretended the rest didn’t exist?”

Chris nods. “But she wasn’t consistent about it either, so sometimes you can figure it out by reading entries from different times. Anyway, she’s not reliable but on the other hand, she ran into a lot of things up there that you don’t even see anymore.”

“And Allison says something in there explains this hurt fox they found,” John says. “Well, it’s worth looking into. God knows we don’t have much else on American Nemetons from that far back.”

He holds out the open case for the books and Chris starts to put them in, then stops. “I probably should’ve told you about this anyway,” Chris says.

“Chris…” John starts, in that worried, slightly frustrated tone he uses whenever he thinks Chris is wallowing in guilt again—which isn’t wrong, but John never seems to think guilt is even applicable to Chris. He looks down at Chris, pauses, and then takes a breath. “Hey, I know now, and things have been going well. No extra dead bodies for half the summer, my son hasn’t had to maul anybody with the tree. I’m glad to have it but I don’t think we’ve been hurting without it, you know.”

For a second Chris wants to apologize, and not for holding back on John, but for making the man work so hard to be reassuring. Then he pushes that down because he knows that’ll just make John more uncomfortable, and he just puts the damn books in the case. He’s helping, he tells himself. This much he knows how to do, and what to do. Maybe he’s slow on the when but that’s why progress reports were invented, as Melissa occasionally tells him.

“I think there’s a couple more over in the boxes in that corner,” Chris says, putting the lid back on the current one. He checks that none of the runes have been wiped off and then gets up, hissing a little as his knees pop. “Just a couple more minutes.”

“I’m good if we leave in a half-hour, so no rush,” John shrugs. He puts the case aside to help Chris restack the boxes, then cocks his head. His bandanna falls down around his neck but he doesn’t seem to notice. “You know, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten around to watching _Last of the Mohicans_. I did hear it was good, even if it’s about the English.”

Chris checks on him, and yeah, he’s working on changing the subject, but he’s teasing too, says the quirk of his mouth. “They changed it a lot from the book,” he says, lifting a box. “Not bad on its own, far as the plot went.”

“Isn’t the lead a sharpshooter?” John asks.

“Well, in _Hollywood_ , I guess,” Chris says, shooting John a look.

The man knew exactly what kind of reaction Chris was going to have to that question, and he’s pleased as hell with himself for getting it. “So you don’t want to watch it with me and Mel?”

“I’ll watch it with you,” Chris mutters. He straightens up the stack of boxes, then moves on to the other corner. “Just don’t be surprised if I duck off to the kitchen to get more popcorn for some scenes.”

“You don’t have to do that, you could stay on the couch and find something else to do,” John presses. Then, when Chris snorts at him, he laughs and bumps Chris gently in the back with the case. “I’ll even clean any stains.”

Chris rolls his eyes and grabs the top box of the next pile. “House rules, you have to do that anyway.”

“Okay, okay, if you’re not interested,” John says. He starts to reach over to give Chris a hand, but stops when he sees Chris has already found the right box.

“It’s not a bad movie. A lot of the history outside of the story’s on point, and the weapons at least look right,” Chris says, already feeling a little guilty.

“We can find something else that’s more accurate about firearms and it’ll probably still cover my entertainment needs,” John says in a soothing voice. “I’m not really a history buff anyway, I just study what I need for the job, so I don’t…didn’t know you were, actually.”

Chris pulls his bandanna back over his nose and mouth, then glances over his shoulder. “That I’m up on my history?”

“Well, no, of course, with your family, and—” Then John gives up and just lets out a frustrated, embarrassed exhale, looking at Chris with mute appeal, as if Chris was ever going to not forgive him. He shifts the case under one arm and rubs at the side of his face. “More I didn’t know you cared about it outside of work.”

“I don’t…” Know that that’s right, Chris almost says, and then he stops and stares absently into the box. He does care that people get the historical background right, but he’s never really thought about it as something just related to his job.

Then again, he’s never really thought about his job as a job. It’s his life, and his job is the business he runs to cover his expenses, since he can’t draw on the collective Argent wealth. And that’s one difference between him and John and Melissa, he thinks: their lives are framed by the Service, but somehow, they manage to cut out space for things that are completely unrelated, and that are just hobbies and interests. Just things they like to do, pie and movies—and once in a while Chris wonders if that’s where he falls for them too.

“History was always the easiest way to figure out who to trust,” Chris says after a moment. He picks out a book and then closes the box. “With my family. You could look up things, and see what outsiders have said about them and whether things match up. And nobody could really fault me for doing extra research, that’s a virtue in a hunter. I guess I didn’t mind it either, getting time to spend away in the library.”

He turns around and puts the book in the case. John’s looking him over, a little concerned, but holding it in, just waiting to see what Chris says and does next. Letting Chris cue him up.

“Anyway, yeah, I can just not watch when it gets annoying,” Chris says, pulling the bandanna off his face. “It’s not a bad movie. I think it’s the kind of thing you’d like.”

“Really?” John says. Once Chris shuts the case, he hands it over, and then stays close instead of stepping back. He lifts his hand and just cups it around the side of Chris’ neck, with his thumb sliding up and down the groove behind the tendon.

It’s a gentler version than the bites Melissa likes to give, but just as much of an alpha move and Chris can feel a whine forming in the back of his throat. He keeps that down, but turns his head, lets himself nuzzle at John’s wrist.

“Really,” he says, after taking a breath. “Lots of one guy telling everybody else they’re wrong and how they’re going to do it right, while everything blows up around them.”

John’s hand stills. Then he snorts and gives Chris a careless little push with his hand, rocking Chris towards him even as he turns away towards the door. Careless to him, anyway—things like that, he never thinks about doing them and he’s never going to understand the effect they have, how damn dominant his confidence is.

“Call _me_ an asshole,” John mutters, and he doesn’t look back but he doesn’t have to; Chris is already following him out. “You’re lucky, is what you are, Chris.”

“Yeah,” Chris agrees.

* * *

Thanks to that meeting of John’s, they don’t have the time to get up to anything. Though John gets a little close to Chris when they’re standing at Chris’ car, and the goodbye kiss he gives Chris is heavy enough to make them both reluctant about pulling out of it…but John isn’t late for the meeting. And when Chris drives into the clinic parking lot, he’s not worried about making himself look decent, for once.

His daughter’s waiting outside for him, sitting on the bench near the front entrance. She gets up, phone in hand, as he walks over with the books. “They kicked me out,” she says, with a little embarrassed shrug. “The fox wasn’t looking too good and they didn’t want to wait, so they took it into surgery and the room’s a little small, I would’ve been blocking something. I did take a couple more photos and some video, but I figured we didn’t want the fox to die on us.”

“Scott in there helping?” Chris asks.

“Oh, yeah, one of the nurses is out so they asked if he could monitor the sleeping gas and hold stuff for them,” Allison says. She gets the door for him, but as soon as they’re into the clinic’s reception area, she’s on the case and trying to pull out the books. “So you found it? I’m not remembering wrong, am—”

“Careful,” Chris says sharply. And immediately feels bad about it when she snatches away her hands, looking up like the first time he’d caught her sneaking out on a hunt. He presses his lips together, then swings the case up onto the counter and pulls out two pairs of handling gloves from one of its side-pouches. “They’re delicate, you need to wear these.”

Allison looks genuinely repentant, and even a little irritated with herself. She takes the gloves and glances around, then snaps her fingers. “Sorry, Dad, I should know better. You know what, we should probably take these into one of the other rooms, just in case somebody comes in…hang on, let me see which one’s free.”

She walks through the swinging doors, but then ducks back out almost immediately, holding back one door. The room right off the doorway is apparently free and she gestures for Chris to come on in.

When he does, Allison’s pushed together some file boxes to make a kind of table and she’s in the middle of tying back her hair. Once that’s done, she pulls on the gloves and then plops down across the boxes from Chris. “Did she write that often about it?” she says, blinking at the number of books Chris takes out of the case.

“No, I don’t think so, but I’m not sure which volume the drawing you’re thinking of is in,” Chris tells her. He hands her the first book and then takes the second for himself. “I think I remember the year and just pulled all the volumes for it.”

“I want to say it was during the fall because I remember I looked at it and at this entry about rutting elk, but then again, I wasn’t really paying attention,” Allison says, with a quick glance at Chris. “I just remembered the drawing because it was so gross.”

Chris hides a smile as he gets down on the floor too, since there aren’t any chairs around and he doesn’t want to bother the doctors. Allison’s dedicated to learning huntercraft, nobody could possibly dispute that, but even she has her limits, and trying to parse the old-fashioned French of the ancestors is one of them. And frankly, he’s happier than not to see it; she needs the skills but he doesn’t want it eating her whole life. He sometimes thinks if he’d caught Kate’s obsession earlier and made her get interests outside of hunting, she might have taken a different path.

“Anything else you notice about that fox?” he asks, as they carefully turn the brittle pages.

“Well, the vet says no matter what the outside of the wounds look like, they actually aren’t too old, and they wouldn’t be that bad either, except that the fox is really weak. They started it on fluids right away, and were talking about how it seemed to have bled a lot longer than it should have,” Allison says. She pauses to turn her head and sneeze—the books are just as dusty as the storage room had been—and then she pulls up her shirt over her nose. “Oh, and Scott says that Stiles says the tree showed him the fox getting into a fight with a bobcat, and it doesn’t know why we’re making such a big deal over it.”

“Stiles still out there?” Chris says.

Allison nods. “He wants to go out to where the fight happened, but I think him and his dad are talking that one over. Did you want to talk to him?”

“No. No, I think we should find the diary entry first.” Chris turns a few pages, then stifles his own sneeze. “I don’t remember it being about anything dangerous or urgent, but anyway—”

“—we should try and narrow it down first, got it,” Allison says.

She smiles at him, and then they both get down to the business of working through the diaries. Since Allison thinks there’s a drawing involved, it goes a bit faster than plowing through them normally does, but it’s still a pretty sedate pace. For all her faults, Dangereuse Argent had the virtue of being a very good artist who preferred making a sketch to the usual terse, annoyingly vague description in bad handwriting, and so there are quite a few pages to check.

Not for the first time, Chris wishes he could get the diaries all properly cataloged and indexed. Some kind of digital database would be even better, but he’s not that tech-savvy, and if he turned them all over to the Service, it’d probably attract attention from the French branch of the family. They’ve stood off since that aborted attempt last Thanksgiving, but they’re definitely not defanged, and he’d prefer to delay any more open challenges to after Allison’s graduated from college and had a chance to recruit her own team. It’s not fair for the two of them to always rely on Scott and Melissa and the Stilinskis, or even the Hales, for deterrence. 

“I think I…nope, that’s a dead wendigo,” Allison says, her voice veering from excited to disappointed. She wrinkles up her nose at the book, then realizes her shirt’s fallen from its tip and tugs it back up again.

Chris suddenly remembers he’s still got John’s bandanna in his pocket, and digs that out and passes it to her. “Which one are you in?”

“Um…” Allison gingerly flips the book over to look at the spine “…July through September.”

“Why don’t you start at the back and work forward?” Chris says.

“Oh, good idea. I should’ve thought of that.” Allison snags a blank sheet of paper from a nearby sheet, rips off a bit and sticks in her current spot, and then starts again from the back of the book. She pages through it for a few minutes, then makes a triumphant noise from behind the bandanna. “There it is! And…ew. It looks just as gross as I remember, poor beaver.”

As Chris shuts his book, she rotates hers so he can get a look. The sketch shows what appears to be a freshly-deceased beaver with claw slashes deeply scoring one side. The edges of the slashes have the same shriveled, jerky-like appearance as the photo Allison sent of the fox.

“What’s it say?” Allison asks, shaking down the bandanna. Then she pulls a face that’s half-coaxing, half-rueful. “You’re going to read it a lot faster than me.”

“Not that much faster, her handwriting’s not any better than anyone else in the family,” Chris mutters, though he’s already scanning the crabbed notes scaling the page around both sides of the drawing. “Seemed like a cougar got it, but body was oddly light. Were worries it was a sign of some kind of vampire, but…they staked out all the local cemeteries and no sign of that, and the local tribe thought it was a joke when they got around to asking them. Told them the Nemeton would take care of it and weren’t worried at all.”

Allison’s pulled out her phone and is taking notes down on it, but at that last part, she looks up. “So we should circle back with Stiles?”

“Well, we should update him, but…” Chris leans over the book and squints at the page opposite the sketch. Then he frowns. “She references a dead elk they found earlier in the year, in March.”

She’s already over at the case and pulling out the right volume. “Date?”

“No,” Chris sighs. “Just says it was the day after the great ice storm that froze Philippe’s hands to his rifle barrel, and one of the others had to shoot it till the barrel warmed up enough to free him.”

“That doesn’t sound too safe, and it’s a waste of ammunition,” Allison says, making a face again. She goes relatively quickly through the book, then suddenly slows down, presumably hitting the March entries. “Couldn’t they just have boiled some water and poured that over him?”

Chris laughs, and then, when she looks up, they share a smile. She gets that from her mother, he thinks, that streak of practical common sense; they might be at the top of their profession, but the Argents have always liked attention just a little too much for their own good. Most of them, anyway—Chris thinks he’s more or less escaped that particular flaw. “Dangereuse also references a couple events from the year before, so you can take your time. Looks like I’ll be going back to the storage unit anyway.”

“Oh, okay,” Allison says. She glances down at the book, then back at him. “Want me to go with you? Scott said he was probably going to be here a while. Once the fox is out of surgery, it’s going to need a lot of nursing.”

“Going through the boxes might take a while too, if she keeps referencing other entries,” Chris says. “I thought you and Scott had something.”

“I can push it off. This is interesting, and anyway, I don’t think you should get stuck with all the boring work,” Allison says. Then she ducks her head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean boring, I meant…difficult?”

Chris considers her for a second, and then shrugs. “Well, remember you asked for this,” he says, getting up.

* * *

Just to be on the safe side, Chris decides they’ll take out all of Dangereuse’s diaries this time. He and Allison drive them back to Melissa’s house and clear off some space in the living room to work in. Allison ducks into Scott’s bedroom and comes back with a whiteboard, which apparently got left there the last time Stiles was over—Chris believes it, considering the kind of diagrams that are scribbled over it.

“I think he and Scott were working on lacrosse plays to leave Finstock, so he’d clear up about them graduating,” Allison says, as she and Chris look down at the whiteboard.

Chris tilts his head. “How does lacrosse involve giant slingshots?”

“I think that’s just supposed to be a metaphor. Or something.” Allison doesn’t look very sure about that, and then turns over-enthusiastically as her phone goes off. She checks her texts and then winces. “Um, so Stiles heard we’re having a research party.”

Before Chris can answer, his phone goes off. He has a feeling about it, and that feeling is proven right when it turns out to be John, saying that Stiles asked if he could come along for dinner. A second text adds that Chris doesn’t have to say yes and John can just tell Stiles they’re doing the research and to be patient, and Chris can practically feel John grimacing through the tiny letters.

“I’m gonna remind him family night is in two days, and this is parent night,” Allison is saying.

“Wait, what?” Chris says, blinking. “Parent night?”

Allison freezes. Then she looks up with a very carefully composed face. “Well, Scott and I were going to be out, and I think you said Stiles’ dad was coming over, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t say that,” Chris says dryly. He watches his daughter blush—he’s guessing she actually deduced that from something Stiles said, so he’s both proud of her for being observant and exasperated with her over the silly lie—and then takes pity on her and shrugs. “Though yeah, he was planning to. It’s just…is that what you all call it?”

“Parent night?” Allison says, and now it’s her turn to look confused. “You guys get together, and we’re not in the house, and…were we supposed to call it something else?”

Chris sighs. “I guess you can call it what you want, it just kind of sounds like we’re all going to school to meet your teachers. I thought once that you’re out of high school, I don’t have to do that anymore.”

“Well, I’m going to _try_ not to make you come up to college,” Allison says. She’s a little miffed, but it’s playful, and it smooths away as she nudges him with her elbow. “Not that you can’t come up whenever you want. You do know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know, but I think you’re going to want your space—”

“But I want my _dad_ too,” Allison says firmly. She pauses and looks at him, and she’s nervous and Chris suddenly wishes he’d just let things go. “It’s going to be weird, you know, not living at home. I mean, I know I’ve got Scott there, and it’s not even really that far from here, but it’s just…never something I’ve done before. And when I come home, it’ll be all different—”

Chris guesses where she’s going and feels even worse—he never even thought, and he should’ve. He’s her damn father. “I’ll open up the house for whenever you come down,” he says. “Sorry, I—”

Allison’s eyes widen and then she reaches over to grab his hand. “What? No, Dad, that wasn’t what—no, listen, I’m really happy that you’ll be over here. If you want to meet here, that’s fine with me, that’s not what I meant. I just meant—God, I’m messing this up—I meant it’ll be different in that I’m…I’m not living with you anymore. And that’s not a bad thing, it’s just…it’s new. That’s all.”

She looks so anxious to reassure him that Chris starts to fight himself into looking calm again. Then he makes himself stop. She’s old enough and smart enough now to see through that, and he knows it just makes her more worried about him.

“Well, you’ve grown up,” he finally says. “Comes along with that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, and I’m glad you’re letting me do it.” Allison squeezes his wrist and then lets go, though she’s still watching him. “I just hope you do get a little more free time after I’m up there. Because I know how much time you’ve spent working on teaching me things, and making it okay when I screw up, and I just—think you deserve a break, Dad. You should get to do things that aren’t just about me, no matter what the family code says.”

Chris starts to reply, then finds his voice sticking in his throat. He coughs to clear it and somehow, ends up chuckling, soft and rough. “You’re a good daughter,” he says. Regrets it when Allison suddenly tears up, even if she’s smiling at him. “Look, just enjoy college and don’t worry about me. I can find something to do.”

“I know, but that’s kind of what I meant. We’re all going to be out of your hair for most of the week, and you’re going to be here with Melissa now, and I know you guys spend a lot of time just crashed out after taking care of us,” Allison says. She rubs at one eye, then turns with slightly overdone briskness to her phone. “I guess what I’m trying to say, Dad, is can you get a hobby?”

She’s trying to make it funny just in case he’s offended. He’s not, of course, and he tries not to let it show too much how sometimes he looks at her and he’s so proud he wonders how did he _not_ screw her up so badly. 

But that would make her feel guilty, and he’s got enough of that problem himself without passing it down to her. “I’ll work on it,” he says. Pauses, thinking of earlier in the morning, and then smiles to himself. “I’m working on it. And…you know, you can tell Stiles it’s fine. I’m just going to tell his dad to bring him, anyway.”

“Dad?” Allison says, frowning.

“Well, more eyes will make it go faster, and I don’t want to spend all of parent night on this,” Chris says. He tilts his head. “I guess there could be worse names for it.”

“You don’t want to know what Stiles was calling it for a while,” Allison mutters. She still looks skeptical, but she’s texting. “Scott made him stop. I didn’t even have to ask him, he just told Stiles it wasn’t funny anymore and Stiles got kind of embarrassed and then he said sorry to both of us. _That_ was pretty funny, actually.”

“You’re right,” Chris says after a second. “I think it’s much better when I pretend that we’re so sneaky you kids don’t notice anything.”

Allison looks at him, then rolls her eyes. “ _Dad_ , come on. You trained me.”

Chris makes a face. “I know, Allison. I know.”

* * *

“There’s a pie and a half in here already,” Chris mutters, trying to move things around in Melissa’s fridge. He relocates some jam jars to one of the door shelves, then attempts to wedge a packet of tortillas behind them. “Look, she’s got a sweet tooth, but even she doesn’t go through them that fast.”

“Yeah, well, if my kid and your really old books were going to be in the same room, in her house, I wasn’t going to come empty-handed,” John says. He hunches a little as over in the living room, Stiles yells at him to come back and check out this cool entry about Nemetons regulating beaver dams and how it could totally solve their flooding problem.

Chris frowns absently at the bowl of leftover mole in his hands. “We have beavers?”

John sighs. “No. Listen, I just want to say—”

“Three pies aren’t enough for a grown man to hide behind,” Melissa says, coming up to them. She takes the short stack of pie boxes away from John, her brow sternly arched, and then bumps both Chris and John away from the fridge with her hip. “You brought him, John, get back in there. And Chris, I’ll take care of these, I think you might want to watch out for your books.”

“I think Allison’s keeping a pretty close eye out,” Chris says, seeing how a miffed look goes across John’s face.

Melissa makes an acknowledging noise, but she’s already turned her attention to the fridge, and if there’s a family lesson Chris _was_ glad to have handed down to him, it’s to pick your fights carefully, and your fights with women, as rarely as you can. So he backs off and just grabs the coffee refill he’d actually come back into the kitchen for.

“Stiles won’t damage them,” John says as they head back towards the living room. “Whether he’s going to let go of them, that’s a different story, but he’ll take care of them whoever has them.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not worried about that,” Chris says, glancing over. He’s not sure if John is just joking or if the man really thinks he needs to be reassured.

John gives him kind of a weak smile, then catches Chris lightly by the arm, stopping them just short of the other room. They can see some of the books on the table, and one vigorously gesturing hand—Stiles, since Chris remembers Scott and Allison taking seats on the other side—but that’s it, and the kids certainly can’t see them. Though they’re not paying attention anyway: Stiles and Allison are discussing whether importing beavers counts as importing an exotic species, seeing as historically beavers were in the area _but_ the Nemeton’s gotten used to managing without them, while Scott’s doing his best to moderate. 

“Thanks for letting Stiles at them,” John says. He hesitates, his hand curling to almost wrap around Chris’ elbow. Then he lets go but raises the hand to just brush the knuckles against Chris’ left ribs. “He’s just so excited about finding any kind of writing about American Nemetons, but I’ve been reminding him to respect the source, too.”

“Well, look, if it’s helpful.” Chris sees the way John’s gaze sharpens and doesn’t know whether to sigh or to cringe. Both John and Melissa are good at not holding Chris’ habits against him, and trying to work with those, but he can still tell when he’s making them uncomfortable. They don’t make a big deal out of it, but he can see it. “And it’s not…I’m not just offering because I’m—I’m trying to make you happy, or live up to my end of things.”

“Because this isn’t a business deal, and I think we’ve moved past the courting stage,” John says. He’s precise about the way he says that, casual but deliberate, keeping his tone away from condescending and making it sound like he’s just reminding both of them. His hand comes up and just runs its fingertips along the underside of Chris’ jaw. “I know I’m nowhere near as good as Mel about saying that sort of thing, and I get all wrapped up in the job, but you know—”

Chris blinks hard, surprised that the man was even worried about that. Then he laughs a little. Laughs and tips his chin down so John’s cradling it, and steps forward so that his hands brush up against the fronts of John’s thighs. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I’m not…I don’t think I’m _that_ bad.”

“You’re not,” John says simply. He’s still calm but he’s holding back, Chris can hear the strain of it in his voice. He pauses another second and the way his eyes warm up during the pause—Chris licks his lips and John’s thumb comes around to close against the other side of Chris’ jaw, loosely pinning Chris’ head as John sucks his breath. Then ducks away, though his fingers linger on Chris’ cheek for a second, silently letting Chris know it’s not really him who’s annoying. “Fuck. Swear to God, some day we’re gonna slip up and Stiles is going to hold it over me till the day I die.”

“Well, it’s just evening things up some for you two, isn’t it?” Chris says.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t help, that just gives him a reason to start really keeping track and then he’ll come up with some insane tracking spreadsheet and next thing I know there’s an office pool with weekly odds adjustments,” John mutters. He rubs at the side of his head, then looks back up. “It’s a lot more effective to try and keep the moral high ground on that one.”

Chris raises his brows, then takes a quick sip of coffee. He’s gotten a little short of breath, even though they’re just standing in the damn hall, and he figures the swallow might put his breathing rhythm back in order. “Okay. Not that you’re that much higher, truth be told. You know the rangers have this signal for telling people when I’m in your office with you, right? With the blue Post-Its?”

“I did _not_ and thank you for making the next team meeting awkward as hell,” John says.

Chris snorts into his coffee, and over the mug’s rim, he can see John cracking a reluctant smile. He swallows before he chokes himself, and then has another sip. Then he lowers the mug. “Look, if there’s information in those diaries about Nemetons that Stiles finds useful, then I think he should get to see it. It’s not just because of you and me, it’s because I’m just sitting on this stuff otherwise. I think my family’s kept too many secrets already—it’s not like back in the old days, when you had trade secrets because those were what let you survive. These days hunting trade secrets just gets innocent people killed, waiting on you.”

When he’s done, he ends up taking a quick gulp of coffee because his throat’s dried out. Halfway through, Allison says something so loudly that Chris jerks and turns around, thinking she’s come out into the hall with them.

She hasn’t, but he ends up with coffee dripping down his chin. He grimaces and goes to wipe at it, but John gets there first.

“Well, thanks,” John says. He rests the ball of his thumb against Chris’ mouth for a second. Then he drops his hand and twists away, towards the doorway. “And just in case Stiles doesn’t get around to it, he’s thankful too.”

“Dad, what are you talking about?” They’ve finally been noticed and Stiles tilts his chair back till he can peer at them, his eyes narrowed suspiciously at his father. “I totally thanked Chris when we showed up for the extra family night and the whole letting me at rare Argent document things. I thought that covers all of it, unless you want me to thank him for the delay in—”

John looks pained. “Whatever you were going to say, son, just remember who’s looking over your and Lydia’s request to block off the third most-popular trail so you two can test a fancy dinner plate.”

“Oh, my _God_ , it’s not a dinner plate—it doesn’t even look like a plate! It’s a parabola! A highly calibrated—” Stiles glances around, then suddenly cuts off right in the middle of his rant. A little bit of an annoyed expression crosses his face, but it’s not there long enough to qualify for even a breather, and then he turns to Chris with a brilliant, apparently genuine grin. “So listen, these are awesome, I can’t believe nobody’s heard of this woman before, please, _please_ tell me I can make copies?”

“Of the parts that actually are going to help you and the tree pinpoint that fluctuation point you were talking about, right?” Allison says, arms crossed over her chest, brows raised.

Stiles gives her a pleading look, which he then sweeps around to focus on Chris. “And some other parts? Like the parts where I think she might be the oldest European observer of an alternative method of Nemeton propagation that never existed in the Old World? Which is really, really major, like I think the Service might just pony up a whole grant just to test it?”

John clears his throat. “Stiles, if Chris—”

“It’s not just the money, I know, I’m just saying, as an admittedly crude and capitalistic measuring stick of how important I think it could be,” Stiles says. He’s moderated his tone some, but he’s still clearly excited as hell, waving his hands towards the books and then grabbing up a notebook where he’s apparently been taking notes. “And well, more to life than money but money kind of does help. You know, with those unexpected emergencies.”

“Like when your friend accidentally sticks his foot in his mouth, and then sort of looks like he might be okay with it, and you decide that to save him you’re going to have to go for surgery?” Allison says.

“Um, guys,” Scott says, looking apologetically at Chris while wrapping a gently restraining arm around Allison’s arm. “Maybe we should just backtrack a little and let them know what we found that’s relevant to right now?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, that’s really cool, too,” Stiles says, flipping through his notebook. He finds the page he’s looking for and puts it down. 

Then he pops on the handling gloves, reaches for one of the diaries, and opens it at a place marked out by a slip of paper; he holds the diaries with one hand properly supporting the spine instead of pinching at the crumbling edges, and when a page sticks, he doesn’t crinkle it up trying to get it loose, but instead uses the corner of one of his notebook pages to tease it apart. Chris catches Allison letting out a sigh of relief, and then she notices he’s watching her and gives him a little exasperated shrug, nodding at Stiles.

“Okay, so, Nemetons monitor magical currents as part of the whole ecological caretaking thing, right? But the thing is, that stuff varies a lot more from place to place than we really knew till just recently,” Stiles says. He glances up as Chris and John take seats, then puts the book down and tilts it so they can see the pages. “So the guardian succession tradition here was oral guardian-to-guardian tradition, but that got cut off when the tree switched to me. I can get some of the gaps from the tree but it doesn’t remember stuff like we do, and I can’t always tell it what I _don’t_ already know, so it didn’t tell me that here, sometimes the magic forms these little deadish patches.”

“It’s like vampire dirt,” Allison says to Chris.

Stiles makes a face at her and shuffles the notebook and a pencil between his hands. “It is not. Vamps actively need life energy, these things just have a deficiency. It’s basically a kind of osmosis, high-energy thing like an animal transfers some to a low-energy place.”

Allison shrugs. “Okay, so it’s vampire dirt that doesn’t know what it’s doing.”

For a second Stiles looks like he’s going to expand on his objection, and then he just sighs and shakes his head. “Just because I left Derek at home doesn’t mean anybody’s gotta step up with the oversimplifying one-liners,” he mutters. “And okay, I got pushy a second ago, sorry about that, but these are just—they’re really cool. We don’t have a lot of Nemeton records from that far back in North America, and these are just really _detailed_ , and she actually drew _pictures_ , and…I mean, they’re yours, it’s your call. I just would really love them and cherish them and forever preserve them if you let me keep looking at them?”

Both Allison and John straighten up as Stiles turns to Chris again. They’re ready to jump in if Chris even twitches—actually, Allison seems like she might even if he doesn’t. So he puts his coffee down and clears his throat. “Well, we might be able to work out something, but there are a couple things,” Chris says.

“Oh, paperwork, sure, we’ll get it all legally covered and make sure you don’t get into trouble or anything, on top of grants and stuff,” Stiles immediately says. He shoots John a pleading look and then goes back to Chris. “Oh, and, um…if there’s a…a family issue or something about this stuff getting to us…Dad, we can do something about that too, can’t we?”

“Stiles, I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here,” John says, surprised and, though he’s trying to hide it, unhappy.

Allison looks anxious too. That and guilty, and Chris almost winces because it really shouldn’t be on her shoulders to keep track of all the damn invisible tripwires their family tree’s laid around them. “No, I can handle that if you’re just copying excerpts,” Chris says quickly. Of course, then he has John’s attention and has to keep going. “They have no right to block me from showing these to anybody, chain of inheritance is clear, and anyway, they’ve acted like the American side is nothing to them for so long that they’d have to swallow a lot of pride to admit we have something of value. What I meant was Dangereuse got a lot of things wrong and I know that firsthand.”

“Really?” Stiles says, blinking. He starts to reach for the diaries again, then pulls back his hand. “Huh. Well, all the Nemeton stuff looked okay. The drawings, anyway, and…”

He looks at Allison, who is just a little smug. “I skipped over those bits when I was translating for you,” she says, leaning on Scott’s shoulder.

Stiles narrows his eyes. “When you know how much I love science-marches-on moments.”

“Anyway,” Chris says, getting them both to look back at him. “If we can work out something to make sure the wrong or harmful parts don’t get out, then that’s me taken care of. Allison?”

She blinks at him, straightening up in surprise, and then nods sharply as she gets it. “Right, that’s probably the main thing…though I don’t want to give up the diaries themselves, and if you’re going to make copies, they are really old and delicate—”

“Oh, no, we are _all_ over that, we’ve got it covered. I promise you I won’t even change how much dust is on them,” Stiles says. He’s getting excited again, glancing back and forth between them and John, who still looks reluctant but who seems to be leaving this up to Chris and Allison. “Awesome. I will get right on that grant proposal—”

John opens his mouth.

“—in full consultation with you, obviously, and we’re not gonna submit anything to the Service till you’ve looked at it and okayed it,” Stiles goes on without so much as a pause for breath. “And in the meantime, thanks to these, me and the tree are going to keep the cute fuzzy animals of the forest from being turned into jerky.”

“They tell you how to do that?” Chris asks.

“Yeah, actually, it’s pretty simple. The Nemeton already regulates the current shifts that make these dead patches,” Stiles says. “They’re natural phenomena, it already knew about them, it just didn’t know we cared if the patches were that small. Because they are pretty small, it’s not like the fox even died.”

Scott shifts uncomfortably. “Well, no, but it’s going to take a while to recover, and even if it happens naturally, what if a kid wanders into the spot?”

“Which is why I’m going to head out to the tree tonight and get that spot smoothed over,” Stiles tells him.

“But why…sorry, I’m just wondering,” Allison says. She starts up with her hand raised, then lowers it when she sees she’s gotten Stiles’ attention. “Why wouldn’t it know that? It just seems like this is something that should’ve come up before. Wouldn’t the previous guardians have said something?”

“Allison,” Chris says. He tries not to do it too sharply, since they’re in company, but he does pitch it as a warning.

She glances at him and presses her lips together; she doesn’t want to agree with his caution, but after a moment, she nods. John looks over too, his brows raised in question, but Stiles actually doesn’t appear to have noticed at all. Instead he’s dropped back in his seat and is staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Stiles says. His voice drifts slightly, signaling that he’s double-talking with them and the tree at the same time. “Maybe it was a matter of size? Guardians have different styles, and like I said, current shifts like that are natural, so if you’re redirecting them all the time you’d wear yourself out. The last one might’ve just thought it wasn’t worth bothering about…I don’t know, she didn’t leave a lot of documentation.”

“Oh,” Chris says. “I didn’t know. I always thought—hunter families, we try to write down everything.”

“Yeah, which is why being able to study these would be so cool,” Stiles says, nodding at the diaries. His eyes are still a little distant, but then he shakes himself out of it and focuses on Chris. “It might be secondhand and have inaccuracies, but it’s still gonna make my head hurt a lot less than trying to pick through the tree’s memories. Plants aren’t great at chronological order.”

Allison hooks up her chin to get Chris’ attention. He looks over but he’s not sure what she’s expecting from him, and then she makes a small gesture with her hand, pointing between Stiles and the books and then Chris and the books. She wants to know whether he’s got any more to say about turning them over to Stiles—Chris shakes his head. And anyway, the final call belongs to her.

“Well, we don’t want you to have migraines,” Allison says. She keeps looking at Chris for another moment, then turns to Stiles. “Every time you do, Derek starts freaking out at anything that makes a noise. I’m pretty sure I caught him scaring a bunch of sparrows out of your backyard the last time.”

Stiles smiles with fond exasperation. “Yeah, he’s a good beta. Even if it just ends up making _more_ noise and Peter tries to smother him with pillows and…anyway, thank you. Really, thank you so much. I think this is really going to help us out.”

Allison smiles and then looks at Chris again. “Well, that’s all we want,” Chris says. “Just helping out.”

* * *

Later that night, once the kids have left and they’ve tidied up, Melissa gets out one of those pies and Chris and John fold out the couch, and the three of them sprawl out for a marathon of Melissa’s favorite true-crime show.

Melissa and Chris do, anyway. John sits up near the top and keeps turning a dubious glance on both of them. “I just don’t get why you’d want to watch crappy discount-store reenactments of some crackpot’s conspiracy theory about murders. Isn’t this what we do for _work_?”

“You know, whatever Stiles brings home, we’re not actually the FBI, right?” Melissa says, digging into her slice. She sticks her forkful into her mouth and then stretches over Chris to get at her glass of milk, over on the small table they’ve pulled up at the end of the mattress. “What we actually do for work, John, is _prevent_ murders in federal forests. And, you know, conserve our wilderness, save the trees, help the animals. Those are in the job description too.”

“Still don’t get it,” John says, his arms crossed over his chest. Eyes drifting back towards the TV, Chris notes as he flattens down for Melissa. John’s watching a dramatic recreation of a highway chase when he rolls his leg and bumps Chris with his knee. “Are you really into this?”

“Well, I was kind of skeptical, but I started watching along back when my shoulder was dislocated, and it’s more fun than you think,” Chris says. Behind him, Melissa makes a smug noise, and then she curls up with one arm draped over his shoulder, tugging him up against her chest as John snorts down at them. “The trick is we only watch the ones with updates solving them, so now we know all the ways the original episode screwed it up.”

Melissa laughs and kisses his temple, then drops her head to rest against his shoulder. He can smell the peaches on her breath and he’s not even hungry, already had a nice big slice himself, but his mouth waters a little bit.

Chris leans back against her and she’s not really braced for it, so they end up switching places, his head sliding down to pillow on her breast while she raises her chin to clear the top of his head. Her arm slips off his shoulders to loop across his chest, and her fingers ruffle into his shirt-collar as she grins at John. “Or the reunion stories. C’mon, John, I know you’re not just a big block of cynical thinking. Stop thinking about all the paperwork involved, you don’t even have to do it. All you have to do is just lie back and watch somebody else go through all the trouble.”

“And you’re telling me to drop the cynical attitude?” John says. His brows go up but he’s loosened up his crossed arms, and is starting to slump down the couch. He glances back at the screen and then makes a face as a sheriff earnestly explains why they didn’t think to check whether the car’s runework had been tampered with. “Okay. Fine. I’ll give you two episodes to convince me, but if that doesn’t work—”

“What? What are you going to do, walk out?” Chris asks.

John narrows his eyes at Chris, who mock-submits by putting his hands up. One of them pokes into Melissa’s pie and Chris curses, then pulls his hand back and sucks the peach pulp off his finger while Melissa, giggling, moves the plate to the table.

“The hell would I do that for?” John says, his voice suddenly rough and low. He scratches at his cheek, his gaze moving slowly over Chris, with a deliberation that feels like teasing fingertips.

Just right then Melissa strokes up inside Chris’ shirt, petting along his collarbone, and her nail catches him and between that and how John is staring at him, Chris starts. Then bites his lip against a hiss. He puts his hands down and Melissa pulls her arm tight against him, holding him in place as John pushes himself up from the couch back and rolls onto his hands and knees, coming over at a leisurely pace.

“I just don’t really think the show’s that good, considering what else we could be doing,” John says, a hint of a smirk on his face as he looks down at Chris.

“You’re saying that because you’re trying to get out of watching another episode,” Chris says.

“Yeah, well, neither of you seem to be fighting me so much on that.” John leans over so far and so close that when Chris inhales, he’s breathing John’s warmed exhale…and then grabs the remote from where it’s lying by Chris. Puts the TV on mute. “Anyway, I owe you for Stiles tonight.”

Chris blinks hard, caught in the middle of a squirm against Melissa, who’s gone back to swirling her fingers inside his shirt and over his shoulder. “I thought it—”

“Yeah, I know, it turned out okay, but still, you handled him pretty well,” John says. His eyes wander down to Chris’ waist and then he reaches out and casually flips up the hem of Chris’ shirt. It was riding up anyway, thanks to Melissa, and now damn near all of Chris’ belly is open to them.

Chris breathes in quick while John and Melissa share a look over him. “You should call in those kinds of chips,” Melissa advises. Offhand about it, eyes still locked with John’s, but her free hand suddenly closes around one of Chris’ wrists. 

She pulls it up to rest on his chest, just above his bared stomach, and then holds it as John, humming to himself, undoes his belt and pulls it off. He flops it around so it doubles back on itself, letting the loop wilt over to hang down past his hand and right in Chris’ face. “Anyway,” John says, like Chris isn’t already panting. “I figured fair’s fair, you should get taken care of sometimes.”

Melissa presses her mouth into the side of Chris’ head, behind the ear but on the hair, so it’s just warm. And then she moves over and her lips directly touch his skin, and they’re _hot_ and he can’t hold back his yearning whine anymore. Rocking against her, eager for it already, and they’ve barely even touched him.

John laughs, but he’s still just toying with the belt, and it’s not till Melissa nips Chris’ ear that he gets it. Gasps and clears his throat, as much as he can, what with the heat closing it up. “Yes, yes, please, God.”

“Swear, you’re gonna make my ego blow up,” John mutters, his voice suddenly a little thick too. He jerks his head to the side, like he’s shaking off a daze, but when he looks back at Chris, his eyes are as burning as before.

“I don’t really think Chris has anything to do with that,” Melissa says playfully, making John snort.

But she’s holding onto Chris like she means it, keeping a good tight grip on his wrist as John wraps the belt around it, cinches it. John brings up Chris’ other wrist and crosses them, then loops the belt over and under and around, finally pulling the end back through the buckle to fasten it. The leather’s snug but it gets warm fast against Chris’ skin, almost till he doesn’t feel it anymore.

Melissa moves her hand to hold his wrists by the belt as John moves on, kissing his way down the center of Chris’ belly as Chris groans and pulls his knees up and wide. He’s trying not to be so eager he just bashes John’s face, but it’s hard, with how every little touch sends pleasure skittering down through him. He manages to keep his hips down, but he can’t stop them from shifting from side to side, and then when John gets to his waistband, God, but he’s glad for both of them that John decides to also grab his thighs and haul them down.

“Couldn’t get him into sweats?” John grumbles, working open the fly to Chris’ jeans.

His tongue dips into Chris’ bellybutton, and two of his fingers slide into the half-open zipper to rub up and down Chris’ erection, so Chris misses what Melissa says but he hears her exasperated tone and knows she’s telling John off for making that her job. Honestly, if one of them just asked, Chris thinks he might not ever get dressed. Not properly, not unless he had to leave the house. If they told him to do it, he’d just put on whatever they wanted and wait for them.

He’s thinking about that some, drifting, and then the belt bites his wrists as he arches. John’s stripped his jeans down to mid-thigh and is gripping over the crinkled denim, pinning Chris as he noses Chris’ cock up into the air. His lips suck and tug at the middle, and then he runs his tongue up to the head, rounding under the flared part and puffing across the top as Chris hisses and shakes.

“Nope,” Melissa says suddenly, just before her teeth sink into the side of Chris’ neck. He immediately freezes, even though John is mouthing his cock head and _God_ —and she nuzzles over the bitten spot so he can feel her smile. “No, back up, he’s doing it so you don’t.”

She pulls Chris’ hands back onto his chest. He’d jerked them down towards John’s hair, unable to take the spiraling sensations, but…but they want him to do that. Take it. He whines and he twists his hips, trying to wrench them from John’s equally uncompromising hold, but he lies there as John slowly, achingly works Chris’ whole cock into his mouth.

When John’s lips graze at the hair circling the base, Chris throws his head back and stops struggling. Though it’s more like he can’t struggle, because all of his bones have suddenly melted on him. He glimpses the ceiling and then his eyes shut because it’s so good, and in the dark he feels the way his hair’s getting sweaty, painting Melissa’s shoulder and neck with dampness. The hard, even pressure of the belt around his wrists, and the lighter shift of Melissa’s hand over it, sometimes tugging against him, sometimes with him, loosening up the leather so it doesn’t get too tight. He doesn’t mind, but then, he doesn’t think to mind in these moments; she does that, that’s one of the many reasons he loves her.

And John, who works him patiently, waiting out his bucks and his urgent cries, letting him wear himself out till he’s trembling with it and then taking him along at the pace John wants. Easing him up to the very edge, when he thinks he can’t even hold together for it, he’ll just fly apart if John pushes him—stopping again. Letting him slide back just far enough that he’s whining again in disappointment, only to take his cock and start it all over again.

The third time, Chris loses his breath for even whining and just sags his head against Melissa’s neck. “Okay,” she says, low, soothing, voice like a cool hand over his fevered forehead. “Okay. J—”

John grunts around Chris’ cock, then sucks hard and finally brings Chris to climax. Nurses him through it, with mouth and hands. Sucking gently through Chris’ spasming to draw it all the way to the end, while his fingers dig at Chris’ thighs and force out the knots in the cramping muscles. And then, when Chris is all used up, he helps to slide Chris off Melissa and onto the bed.

“Chris?” Melissa says, running her hand up his throat.

He noses at her, and then coughs a little. “Mmm. Yeah.”

“Okay,” she says again, affectionate in her amusement.

She and John move around the bed. One of them gets off, but comes back after a few minutes—Chris hears liquid sloshing around and figures they just went for a drink, but then Melissa’s hand smooths over his buttock.

“Hey,” she says. She pulls at his jeans and he pushes his legs down to help her get them all the way off, even though he’s still too done in to open his eyes. “Hey. So…you know, John always needs to know his work’s been appreciated—”

“You make me sound like some kind of egotistical asshole,” John complains.

Chris can hear Melissa’s eyes rolling. “Well, with sex you _are_ ,” she says. They get into a tussle and she laughs breathlessly and John groans. And then she’s back with Chris, kneading at his ass so he finally gives her a bleary look. “Anyway, I can take care of that. You want to wait this round out?”

She’s holding something in front of his face—a plug. For a second Chris’ body tries to seize up with pure lust; he can’t, he’s still too unstrung, but he manages a groan and a twitch, and then a roll of his hips into her hand. Melissa pinches him and he twitches again, then humps himself over. Spraddles on his bound hands, legs spread.

“Fuck,” John says. He breathes hard and Chris can hear clothes being yanked off. “Fuck. Honestly, how am I supposed to be good with _that_ in my face?”

Melissa’s probably giving him the eye, something like that, but she doesn’t bother talking. Just probes slicked-up fingers between Chris’ buttocks, opening him up for the plug, and then inching that into him as he whimpers and rubs his head into the blanket.

She gives the end of the plug a little tap once it’s seated, and the reverberation from that flattens Chris out for a good few more minutes. Long enough so that once he is able to roll back onto his side, Melissa and John have had time to strip and are well on their way to getting off themselves. Melissa’s on top, but John has braced himself against the couch back, one arm thrown over the arm, so she’s not so much riding him as they’re pushing her up together.

When she lifts up, Chris gets just a glance at the join of their bodies and it’s still enough for him to muffle a moan into the bed. John curses and drops his head into Melissa’s breasts, and from the way she grabs at his hair, Chris guesses he’s suckling a nipple; Melissa’s back curves in a gorgeous bow, something that makes Chris want to drag himself over with his chin, if that’s what it takes, and just…just touch it, just make sure it’s real, it’s so perfect.

“Second, just a—coming back,” Melissa pants, glancing over.

Chris nods. Groans again as John works around so he’s sucking the side of Melissa’s breast and Chris can see the shining wet trail he’s leaving on her skin. He doesn’t know how they do it to him, at his age, but his cock’s already stirring again. He twists his hands against the belt, then stops as the movement works down his body to where his ass is clenching around the plug. And then _that_ works right back up him, and he ends up frotting himself against the bed, lying on his belly and looking up at them.

John looks at him and then swears into Melissa’s chest again. “Jesus, sometimes I don’t know which of you I should be doing.”

“I know,” Melissa gasps. She lifts both arms onto John’s shoulders and speeds up their pace. “God. Ok—okay, just—come on, come _on_.”

But they’re coming back to him. Chris isn’t so worried about it these days; he’s not sure he’ll ever really understand it, but he can see it. Even now, with them crushing together so hard he wonders that they can breathe, they keep looking over. He can see it and he’s waiting for it, and he’s just…he’s just glad he has it, even if he doesn’t understand.

* * *

John ends up staying the night—and he watches four full episodes—but he’s up even earlier than Chris the next day, trying to sneak out without waking Melissa up on one of her rare late mornings. “Stop tiptoeing,” Melissa mumbles into her pillow. “You breathe so loud when you do that.”

Chris just about keeps in his laugh till he and John are out in the hall, but he breaks down before they get downstairs. So John, looking very put-upon, manages to snake cooking breakfast out from under him. “You don’t have to get up either,” John points out, while cutting a banana up over his waffle. “It’s not your kid who figured he’d run around the woods all night and then throw together a last-minute morning meeting to analyze his results. Just because he’s alpha to a couple werewolves doesn’t mean _he’s_ nocturnal now, damn it.”

“I’m used to getting up now,” Chris says. He sets the coffeemaker for John, and then, seeing all the pie boxes cramming up an entire shelf in the fridge, starts to cut himself a slice of the mixed-berry for his breakfast. It’s a lot more unhealthy than he usually does, and he almost has to will himself to not look over his shoulder. “Can’t sleep in anyway, I’d just be lying awake in bed.”

Then again, there’s no need to look behind him when right in front, John’s smirking and nodding at his plate. “Cool Whip’s in the freezer.”

“Trying to make some room in there, not get all my sugar for the week in one meal,” Chris says dryly.

John shrugs and pops another waffle out of the waffle-maker. Then, with a sly look towards Chris, he takes out the tub of Cool Whip and plops a big spoonful on top. “I need it to keep up with Stiles,” he says.

“You do what you have to do,” Chris says, but he still doesn’t touch the tub.

The coffee-maker beeps. Chris goes to get them mugs while John pretends to be insulted and puts away the Cool Whip. His petulant act only lasts as long as it takes for him to get the first mouthful down, and then he’s pulling Chris over for a kiss as Chris tries to give him his coffee.

“So what are you doing today?” John asks, taking the mug. He’s got a white smear above his lip and when the mug comes down, some of it’s migrated to float on the coffee. The rest, he wipes off with his finger and then sucks off while looking at Chris.

It’s not a come-on. At least, Chris doesn’t think it’s intended to be; John’s got that slightly distant look he gets when he’s sorting out his calendar for the day, trying to slot all his priorities. He’s always rejiggering them and Chris does admire how the man never seems to get tired of doing that, even if he gets a little frustrated over it.

“I…was thinking I’d keep going through the diaries,” Chris says.

John frowns. “You don’t have to, you know. I know Stiles got all—but it’ll be at least a week before he gets together enough for that proposal he mentioned, and that’s just a first draft, we’re going to—”

“Yeah. Yeah, I—” Chris grimaces. Stops himself and collects his thoughts. Which takes a few seconds, since really, it’s not like they were in any kind of order to begin with. They’ve just been lurking around in the back of his head since yesterday—building up, but not consciously. Actually, he’s only just working through them now. “That’s not why I was…was thinking about it. Yeah, I know you’ve got to work through things on your end, but…the thing is, I’m so used to thinking about all the stuff my family’s collected as—as I have to take care of it. Guard it. I’m not used to thinking about it as just…history.”

“Yeah,” John says. Neutral but open to hearing more, if Chris feels like talking it out. That’s what he’s saying, both with his tone and the way he’s looking at Chris.

“Just keep it safe and locked up, that’s what I’ve done, but it’s not all tainted. But nobody’s looked at what’s good and what’s not, and—I think that’s a big reason why things started going wrong in the first place,” Chris says after a minute. He stares into his coffee. “Old families like ours, we just keep things in, keep outsiders out, but then we’re trusting only each other to catch the mistakes, and maybe if we’d had more eyes on it, somebody would’ve spoken up earlier.”

“Claudia used to say something pretty close to that,” John says. When Chris looks up, John meets his eyes and then looks down, taking a sip of coffee. “Big reason why she really wanted Stiles to be born and grow up in America, and not over in Poland with her family. Most of the Nemetons here, they’ve had at least one break in their guardian line—not saying it was always right, but it does mean we’ve been forced to hold a lot of that old knowledge outside of the guardian family so it won’t get lost if somebody dies. She wanted him to have that kind of support.”

Chris nods slowly. “Hunter families have the same problem. I guess with World War II and her family—”

“Well, with Wanda, they got lucky, but with the other families who used to have Polish Nemetons, not so much,” John acknowledges.

“Not that I’m trying to compare us to that,” Chris says, suddenly hearing himself and realizing how flippant it could sound. He grimaces but John doesn’t look offended, thankfully. “I was just thinking. I’m trying to—Allison and me, we’re trying to break from the old ways, but just burying everything from the past might not be the best way. So…I don’t know, maybe I should try being a historian, I guess I’m saying.”

Chris laughs a little as he says that last part. Because it’s funny, coming from him—somebody who’s been trained all his life for the outdoors, for an active life, for tracking down and killing—the idea of him reading books all day long. Wearing sweaters with elbow patches and correcting dates, and yeah, he knows he’s just making up stupid stereotypes in his head, and he knows better. Every actual career historian he’s ever met has been gung-ho about digitalization technology to the point of making him feel like a dinosaur, for one.

But also because, he thinks suddenly, he might actually like that. Going through things and trying to find what’s useful, what could be handed down, and not just stalking through the woods and trying to hurt somebody before they can hurt him. If he can get past the fact that it’s his _family’s_ things, put together using the same methods that eventually led them to nearly ruin themselves…but if there’s still good in it. If there is any, he does think it’d be wrong to waste it.

“If that’s what you’re interested in, you wouldn’t be the only one these days,” John says. He pauses politely as Chris starts and sets down his coffee before it spills. “Couple archival projects out there—Parrish was telling me about this one he worked for right after he got his discharge. It’s a nonprofit for supernatural vets, but last time I was in D.C., I heard Interior’s working on something specifically to document career hunters.”

“It is?” Chris says. He shouldn’t really be that surprised; the Park Service alone includes historical preservation under its conservation mandate, though they’ve never focused on hunters that he can recall.

“Yeah, I’m not sure where that is—it’s not going through the Service, I think it’s through the bureaus for native communities—but the tribes have been complaining forever that they don’t separate out hunters and supernatural beings the way we do, and that we’re ignoring the whole hunter side of their history,” John tells Chris. He eats some more waffle and washes it down with coffee, and then reaches over to steal a piece of Chris’ pie crust. Eats it with a smile dancing around the corners of his mouth. “So funding finally came down to do something about it. I guess if it’s tribe-focused, that might not work for you either, but I could put you in touch with people, see if they’ve got ideas for you.”

Chris can feel himself waiting to balk and he presses his lips together. He doesn’t want to sound ungrateful—he doesn’t want to _be_ ungrateful, with how John and Melissa just keep reaching out and reaching out, even if he can’t always reach back. It’s just that old instinct about keeping secrets, rearing its damned head.

He does want to do this, he decides. At least look at it. He’s uncomfortable now, sure, and maybe he’ll never get comfortable and he’ll have to drop it. But at least he can say he tried. And he’s trying.

“Ideas might be good just to talk over,” Chris finally says. “I’m just thinking out loud right now, I don’t really…know where it’s going. And anyway, Allison and I would need to talk.”

“Yeah, well, just let me know. No rush,” John says. He prods at the waffles, sending a stream of half-melted Cool Whip nearly to the plate rim, and then swishes a piece of waffle around in it. Then he pops that into his mouth, with a challenging look at Chris. “So if you’re reading all day, you wouldn’t happen to need a break around lunch, would you?”

Chris makes a face at him, guessing where that’s going. “You too busy to grab something again?”

“And I’m not home, so I can’t pack a lunch before I go,” John says, his eyes dancing with amusement.

“I’m pretty sure that I could throw a bag together for you out of this kitchen,” Chris says with a sigh. “But you’re just going to forget to grab it, and make me bring it anyway, aren’t you?”

“Listen, I’m all for switching gears, but sitting too much isn’t good for your health,” John says. “Just trying to keep you moving.”

Chris hits his shoulder. John grunts but doesn’t stop grinning at him; Stiles mutters a lot about how Derek acts like a concrete wall, but sometimes Chris is tempted to point out that problem starts a lot closer to home where the Stilinskis are concerned.

“Fine,” Chris says. And starts eating his slice of pie, even as John sidles over and slips an arm around his waist and nuzzles in behind his ear. He elbows John and the man responds by sliding directly behind him, pressing him into the counter, hands cradling Chris by the hips.

John’s lips run down Chris’s throat, then come back up as Chris finally can’t hold back the gasp, up and a little forward, working their way under Chris’ jaw. “Thanks,” John murmurs.

“Asshole, Stilinski,” Chris says. Mumbles, with his hands flattened against the counter and the pie forgotten. He stifles a moan as John snorts and nips at the point of his jaw, then caves and leans back into the other man.

“Happy reading,” John says. Gives Chris a last kiss on the cheek, lingering way too long for something over breakfast, and then he moves back to where he’d been.

Chris already misses the feeling of being held, but he takes a deep breath and settles himself. Then he picks up his fork, and pulls his coffee back over, and starts to think about what he wants to get done today. Keeping himself moving. That’s a good way to put it.

**Author's Note:**

> Dangereuse was, in fact, a real medieval French woman's name. Which is a bit too far back, but I just think it's such a good one for an Argent.
> 
> I only dealt with it implicitly before this story, but the drawback of switching Nemetons between unrelated guardians without a transition period is that you do lose a lot of knowledge, because the whole symbiosis between a Nemeton and a guardian is that the guardian can interpret strange human things for a plant and vice versa. And as anybody's who's tried to translate something knows, interpretation can be very subjective. If you're switching guardians who come from different cultures (as would've happened in, say, a Native American to European settler situation, without much outside documentation, if any, that would be passed to the new guardian), that's going to be exacerbated because the guardians would be starting with different mindsets and priorities, but it's not like the Nemeton can consciously understand that in a way it can explain to the new guardian.
> 
> I have the Daniel Day-Lewis version of _Last of the Mohicans_ in mind here. The costuming and prop guns were apparently incredibly on-point, according to experts, but it was criticized for the improbably accurate rifle shooting of the hero.
> 
> Beavers are native to California, though it's unclear what their historical range actually was.
> 
> I know the Sheriff finally got a canonical name, but I'm not going back through this whole series and updating his name. And I don't like Noah anyway.


End file.
